


to fill my heart with music

by horrorterroronesie



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-typical apocalypse, Domestic Fluff, F/F, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-01-18 17:07:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21280229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horrorterroronesie/pseuds/horrorterroronesie
Summary: “We should hang out sometime.” The words spilled out of Melanie’s mouth before she had a chance to rethink. Yeah, Helen was some kind of freaky monster- but at this point it felt like more of a question of who wasn’t than who was.And.And it felt like maybe, she hadn’t had a choice.And wasn’t that relatable?Snippets of Helen and Melanie, through various little collisions.
Relationships: Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Georgie Barker/Melanie King/Helen, Helen/Melanie King
Comments: 36
Kudos: 65





	1. and each breath you take is a brand new beginning

Jared Hopworth was gone.  
The Institute was safe, for the time being.

Melanie ran, and ran and ran until she found an empty spot of the tunnels. The layers of blood on her were drying to a tacky annoyance.  
She sat down hard on the dusty stone.

An indeterminable amount of time passed with her staring at the wall. The blood had well and truly dried. God, she’d liked this hoodie. It was a good hoodie.  
The anger had abated, though. Small mercies. She didn’t know what she would have done with herself if the end of the fight hadn’t stopped the pulsing need to_ move_ from coursing through her arteries.

And then there was a door.

“The police are here,” Helen said in lieu of greeting. “For your information.”  
Melanie sighed.  
“Okay.”

Helen stood in the door, seemingly unsure of what to do next.

“I don’t know if I like this.” Melanie admitted. A non-sequitur. “This whole thing. But I’ve got to like it, I guess? Because if I hadn’t gone... like _that_, then we’d all be neck deep in meat by now.”  
Helen stepped closer, sliding down until she was sitting on the floor in a position mirroring Melanie’s. The dust on the floor under her began to shiver and twist into strange shapes.  
“So I guess I’m supposed to lean into it! Since we’re already stuck here, and there’s no way to get away from all this bullshit and evil gods and _blood that makes sounds_...”

  
She stopped suddenly, gripped by the vague feeling that some sort of quid-pro-quo was necessary. Conversationally. Even though her conversational partner seemed to be breathing backwards and had fingers that were the exact measurable length of _longer than you thought they were last time_.  
“But anyway, are you okay? I mean, thanks for eating Jared Hopworth. So. You good?”  
Helen jolted, looking at her in genuine surprise. Or something that passed for it, she guessed.

  
“I... am I okay?”

  
“Yeah.”

  
“That is... an interesting question.”

  
Melanie idly scratched a spot of blood underneath her fingernail. Helen seemed deep in thought.

“I think. That I am not.” She laughed suddenly. Melanie’s tooth fillings rattled. “But I appreciate the question.”

They just sat next to each other, then, looking at nowhere in particular on the opposite wall.

“We should hang out sometime.” The words spilled out of Melanie’s mouth before she had a chance to rethink. Yeah, Helen was some kind of freaky monster- but at this point it felt like more of a question of who wasn’t than who was.  
And.  
And it felt like maybe, she hadn’t had a choice.  
And wasn’t that relatable?

“I would like that.” Helen murmured.  
“Cool.”


	2. yeah i've heard you sing but it ain't too well

Melanie carefully counted the doorjambs with her cane. It was kinda stupid how the Orientation & Mobility class was on the other side of London- how was she supposed to _orient_ herself or be_ mobile_ to get there? She snorted to herself. No, she knew how to get to the subway, and from there it was a whole entire two minutes to the class. Terrifying.

Door one.  
Two.  
Three.  
Four.  
And then the lift-  
Her cane caught on another door.  
She blinked reflexively, though the action didn’t actually do anything. Reaching out, she stepped backwards, one hand trailing along the wall to double-check.

The lift was a whole two steps further away than it had been before. And that meant...

“Hi, Helen.” She sighed into the unknown. “Y’know, your doors are way more confusing now.”  
“Melanie.” Helen’s voice reverberated and echoed strangely along the thin hallway. “I’m sorry to... disorient you.” She sounded hesitant. Subdued.  
“It’s fine. I would’ve found the lift eventually.”  
“No, I don’t mean...” Helen hummed like a broken TV. “I was under the impression you had decided to end your involvement in ‘supernatural’ matters.”  
“Well, obviously...” Melanie trailed off, realizing something left unsaid in her words. “We can still talk, you know.”

No answer.

“No, really, do you, uh, want to... I have to go to a thing, but after that...” Melanie offered. God, this was awkward.  
“No, it’s fine.”  
They stood around for a moment.  
“Well, I’m gonna-”  
“Goodb-”

  
One good thing about having gouged her eyes out was not having to see embarrassing situations.  
“It really was nice to talk to you.”  
“... Thank you.”  
Wow, Helen really had been loitering around waiting for her chance. And still thought she wouldn’t even talk to her.  
It would just be fair to try.  
“I’d like it if you came by later.” Melanie stated unequivocally. “I’m free this Friday.”  
“You... really?”  
Well, Melanie didn’t know. She was running by the seat of her pants, to be honest. That was what a sudden resurgence of personal freedom got you- no supernatural voyeur and a need to make friends the normal way.

“Sure. “ She confirmed instead, nodding decisively.  
Helen laughed.  
As the echoes faded, she stepped closer to Melanie.  
“Why do you trust me?”  
Boy, that was a question and a half.  
Why did she trust her?  
Was it because there was something familiar in the way she acted, like she could escape her actions if she just looked at it in a specific way, like she was making a conscious decision to give herself autonomy by deciding anything she did was something she had intended to do?

You’re not spiraling out of control if you convince yourself that extreme violence is a sensible answer to your life’s problems, after all.

... And the long fingers weren’t as much of a turnoff as one might expect.

“I think somebody should,” Is what comes out of her mouth instead. “Trust you, I mean.”  
“Huh.”  
There was a moment of silence. Like a beam of moonlight, stretching between them in that second of uncertainty and should-i-or-will-she.  
“Hey, do you want me to introduce you to Georgie?”  
“I thought you were just leaving.”  
“Eh, I left half an hour early ‘cause I knew I’d get lost on the way there. Come on.”  
Melanie led the way back to Georgie’s flat, hearing heels clack against the linoleum behind her in a distorted cacophony.  
She didn’t mind.


	3. like a cheshire cat i think that you are just a grin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> part 1

“Anyone home?” Melanie called out into the apartment.  
It was 7:45 or so, meaning she’d have another fifteen minutes to get ready before they’d all leave for the concert. It was an indie folk punk band- so far up her alley that it had gone straight through the wall and plowed over an old lady crossing the street on the other side. She had three tickets.  
“I’m on the couch. Far left seat.” Helen’s voice rang out through the living room. Melanie smiled.  
“Hey, Helen.” Her own voice came out softer than she had expected. “Still want to come to the concert?”  
There was a pause.  
“Oh- Yes. Sorry.”  
“You just nodded, didn’t you.”  
“...Yes.” Helen admitted. Her laugh now, while still unsettling, was ridiculously cute.   
“Alright, scoot over.” 

She took her place on the couch. There was something niggling at the back of her mind, though... It was the first time Helen and Georgie had been by themselves without her in the middle for any significant period of time- as far as she knew, and she didn’t want to know the particulars, that would be creepy and an invasion of privacy, so it was fine that nobody kne- oh, Jesus Christ, she needed to get a grip on herself. Instead of continuing down that vein, Melanie rested her head on Helen’s shoulderpadded, uh, shoulder. It felt wrong, not like fabric, not like skin, but lacking in both weave and texture- it felt like how she looked. Still there was something. Helen leaned into her chin.

“So. What’s up with you and Georgie?”  
“Hm... Not much. We had an interesting talk just now.”  
“Mm.” Wait. Wait a second. They’d talked about Helen already, about how Melanie trusted her, come on, Georgie, she’s really nice, she’s got a good sense of humour, and also about each of their boundaries and relationships and...  
“Georgie didn’t give you a... shovel talk, did she?”  
Helen laughed, long and twisting. The echo tessellated past her ears.  
“She did.”  
“Oh my god. I’m so sorry-”  
“No, no, it was enjoyable. A lot more to respond the same way.”  
“Oh my god.” Melanie buried her face in her hands, flushing with embarrassment. “You don’t hate her now or something, do you?”  
“Certainly not. She’s... very, very interesting.”  
Well, that was somewhat alarming.  
“Do I want to know?”  
“Oh... ask her instead.”   
Yeah, why not. 

“I’m getting ready,” Georgie called out through the door of their bedroom. “Come in if you want.”  
She did.   
“Oh, and the Admiral’s walking around in here. Be careful.”  
“Oh?” Melanie squatted down and held her hand out. “Is he? Is he, Admiral? Is he?” Her voice went squeakier with each word until she felt soft fur pressing into her palm. “Oh, he is! What’s up, you cool baby!” She laughed. The Admiral made an imperious little murrp of acknowledgment.

“Anyway, what did you want to talk to me about?”  
“You. Uh. A shovel talk. I mean, am I misunderstanding what it means? I don’t want to- just tell me what you were thinking.”  
Georgie sighed.  
“You know I don’t actually care if other people date you, right? I know you know how to make your own decisions, and I’m sorry if I-”  
“It’s okay. I believe you.” Melanie brought one hand up to lay on her shoulder. “So what’s up with you and Helen? Other than that?”  
“It’s... I’m not really sure myself, actually. I think she thinks I’m dangerous.”  
Melanie snorted, then felt a little bad for doing so. It was just...  
“Really?” The idea of Georgie Barker being dangerous to anyone in any non-metaphorical sense was kinda hilarious.  
Georgie wasn’t laughing, though.  
“I told you about my... fear thing, right?”  
“Yeah?” She moved closer, carefully searching for Georgie and putting a hand on her elbow.  
“Well. Apparently, in a world where all the big bad monsters feed off fear, somebody who doesn’t feel it is a Big Deal.”  
Melanie made a small oh of understanding.   
“I mean, it hasn’t been a problem before... I just wanted to mention it.” Georgie finished and sighed. “Sorry. I didn’t want to ruin the mood.”  
“You didn’t,” Melanie assured her, reaching out to take her by the arm. “You can still talk about stuff like that if you need to.”  
Georgie leaned down to land a light kiss on her lips. She tasted like strawberry flavoring and tea. Melanie melted into the kiss, chasing the afterimage of Georgie’s breath on her chin.  
“Okay.” Georgie assented, voice soft. “We’d better get going, then.”  
“Mm? What time is it?”  
There was a rustle of fabric, then a tapping sound.  
“Five to eight.”  
“Shit, we’ve gotta go!” 

They stumbled back into the living room.   
“We’re going!”  
“Ah! Righto.”   
Man, at times like these, it really came to light that Helen Richardson had been a well-off middle-aged real estate agent. It was cute.

The three of them made their way down to the ground floor.

Melanie took Helen’s hand as it was offered, linking arms with Georgie on the other side and setting off down the cooling city streets. The heat still wafted from pavements and metal fixtures, the remnants of a long summer day gone by.

It was weird, really. The person she had been before wouldn’t have been one for a life this slow.   
When her eyes had gone, the connection to the Beholding tearing like a wire, what had remained of the Slaughter went with it. She didn’t know if that was actually what had happened, or just how it had felt, but her time in the Archives had sapped her anger away. 

There was still time for everything to go wrong. Not even in terms of eldritch gods, but in terms of awkward dates and surprise rainfall over an outdoor concert. The thought was incredibly comforting- what a luxury it was, to give a shit about getting drenched and having to go back onto the subway when it’s all fogged up and everything is sticky.

And for the time being, things were good.


	4. and i can feel you laughing under my skin

“Hey,” Melanie muttered, bumping shoulders with Helen. “You okay?”  
She twitched, the movement like a rubber band snapping.  
“Yes, it’s... Helen Richardson never did anything like this.”The concert was a strange mix of laid-back and pumped up, with bean bags on the periphery- currently being ignored in favour of a throng in front of the stage. Another person pushed past them on their way towards it. Georgie herself had left a few minutes ago, with such a tone to her voice that Melanie would have bet the Admiral on the fact that she was winking.

“I guess not.” Despite everything, it still chilled her whenever the difference between Helen and Helen Richardson was mentioned. She shook it off. She’d never actually met Helen Richardson. That woman, whoever she had been, for better or worse, was gone. So what was there to do but understand that?

  
“I do enjoy it, though.” Helen’s voice broke her out of her contemplation. “I’m glad to be here with you.”  
And at the end, that was all that mattered. A choice being made to know each other, again and again through whatever horrorterror nonsense the world might throw. Without any obligation, any necessity, just companionship.

Still. A thought lurked in the corners of her mind, snarling that she was falling into yet another trap, she’d escaped the Beholding but that left her open for the Spiral to eat her for breakfast, who did she think she was kidding? And Georgie was touched by the Powers as much as any of them,_ everyone_ around her was, she would never be free of the lurking terror on the fringes of their world-

  
“Can we go somewhere quiet for a moment? I need to breathe.” She raised her voice, unsure of where exactly Helen was in relation to her.  
“Oh, of course.” Helen tapped her on her left arm, then waited as they clasped hands. It was, somehow, a less dizzying sensation without the incongruity of _seeing_ her normal hands versus _feeling_ what appeared to lie beneath. 

  
The park grew quiet and cold as they moved away from the concert area. Melanie leaned against a tree and sighed. She did want to go back, but she needed to clear her mind first. She could chill here for a moment.

  
“Sorry to take you away from the concert.”  
“No, no, it’s fine. Take your time.”  
“Thanks.” Melanie picked at the lint on her shirt. “...So anyway, are your person hands the real ones, or the long hands?”  
Helen laughed.  
“Neither of them, of course!”  
“Right, right. Should have predicted that.” She went back to fiddling with her clothes.

Wow, what a dumb question to ask. What, had they met each other _today?_ The Spiral’s whole thing was, like... well, she couldn’t actually define what its thing was, and that was probably what it was.  
God, okay, she needed to pull herself together. No dumb questions. Just breathe.

“How much do you know about Helen Richardson?” Helen asked before Melanie could continue the trainwreck of a conversation.  
“I... never met her. And Jon didn’t tell me much.” Or anything at all.  
“He only met her once. For about an hour, if that. I’d be surprised if there was anything to say.”  
“That’s...” _Kinda tragic. How many people had mourned her? Did Helen know? If Melanie had given in to the pulsing of her blood and the feeling of cold metal in her hand, who would mourn her? _  
"Well, it is what it isn't." Helen tapped at the wall. 

“I mean... don’t you ever wish it was _different?_” Melanie shook her hair out like she could dislodge the words' meaning from her head. “Don’t you wish the stuff that happened to you made you a different person than it did? For you, or for Richardson, or anyone.”  
"Hm. I don’t... For better or worse, it's what both she and I have become, isn’t it?"  
"....Yeah. I get that."  
Melanie sighed.

It was all they had, wasn’t it? The end result, the scars and the losses they’d suffered from the entities they’d been entangled with, it was all they could have.

“Melanie...?”

“...Can I hold your hand?”

The night was cold. The guitars and thumping drums of the concert still raged on in the distance.

It was a moment of stillness. A moment of distilled moonlight between the two of them.

And it was that tiny moment of serendipity, of improbable odds, that saw their mouths meet in the middle and intertwine. It was that unlikely little sliver of chance within which their hands joined. Without regard for horror or fear.  
Helen smiled against her lips.

They separated, after what seemed like an eternity. Under her hands, Helen’s shoulders rose and fell in delighted rhythm.  
“Oh...” She breathed out.  
“Yeah.” Melanie knew she was grinning like a lunatic, but couldn’t bother to wipe the expression off her face. “Oh.”  
“That was...”  
“Yeah.”  
“Georgie Barker is a very lucky woman.”

Melanie laughed.

“That felt weird. But... a good weird? I enjoyed it.” Before the tail end of the sentence had petered out, Helen was stepping in close to her. Her breath on Melanie’s neck was pins and needles and ten-dimensional spirographs and Melanie leaned into it.  
“So did I.”  
“Wanna do it again?”  
“Well, since you asked so nicely...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wahooooooo!!!!! its been a while this chapter ended up being kinda long but i hope you liked it!!!!!


	5. oh no, not a chance in hell

They were watching a movie when it happened. One of those awful American Christmas ones Helen liked. Somehow, Melanie doubted the audio description was any drier than the acting- which was to say, it was dry and shitty- but the feeling of Georgie’s hands in her hair and Helen’s head on her lap was enough to get her to shut up and watch. Oh, and the Admiral was nearby too, purring away.

“Oh no.” said Helen.   
“What?” Georgie’s voice was muddled with sleep and comfort.  
“Oh no.” She tumbled off the couch, landing on the floor in a flurry of limbs. “He- they are coming. The Archivist-”

The TV began to screech with static.

_“Melanie- Georgie- get away from m-”_

Her words weren’t words. The meaning was   
meaning

was

what?

?

up was

u

down

what

helen?

helen can you hear me?

her own words were in the back of her lungs and her eyes saw nothing and were all the   
_better_  
_worse_  
for it

a void to the   
left  
right  
lef  
t

a void.

“Melanie! Something’s happening, we need to get out of here, come on.”

said the v

no.  
fuck that.

she reached th

a

hurricane

  
of _static and reaching and turning and twisting and _

her hands found Helen’s. She felt blood gather where the fingers _bending cutting twining through her_ met her own. She held on nonetheless. There were hands on her shoulders? The void?  
Coherency trickled back. Georgie. Of course. But she couldn’t just_ leave_, not like this, she didn’t know what was happening to Helen but she couldn’t just abandon her!  
“Melanie, something’s happened, it’s dangerous to stay here. We need to move, Helen can catch up later.”  
Was there any separation between her thoughts and reality?

“Hey. Helen.” Her voice was reedy in the face of not sound not waves but perhaps spirals from every direction and not a direction

She was scared. She was so scared.

But that didn’t matter.

_because it was about sitting together outside the institute on melanie’s lunch break, helen feeding the birds while melanie snarfed down a large sandwich_

_keeping her company as she raged at everything and nothing, like a magnet warping reality but somehow, paradoxically, keeping her grounded_

_she never actually realized when they had properly started dating, probably somewhere between the first time they met and their first kiss but who could tell?_

_and there were so many moments in between, shared jokes and contemplative conversations that she wouldn’t let slip from her grasp. no matter what._

_helen had never hurt her. never given up on her. so she would return the favour._

“Come back.” She whispered. “Please.”

  
And the _something_  
_nothing_  
abated.

Helen _ex_  
_in _  
haled shakily.  
“Melanie?”  
“I’m here.” Though the concept of where_ here_ was had been mangled a bit.  
“Georgie is right. We need to leave.” Her hands, suddenly almost-so-close-to-human, gently held Melanie’s own. “I... I’m sorry. I hurt you.” Though the memory lingered, Melanie’s hands were free of injury.  
“I could’ve let go.” She took a deep breath and released it. “But I didn’t. So it’s all right.”

Helen stood up.   
A moment. Barely-audible sounds filtered in through the closed window. Melanie strained to hear. Was that... screaming?  
Georgie was the one who spoke first.

“What the hell was that?”

“I don’t-” Helen began, “A ritual has been completed. But I don’t feel... weaker, or less... it definitely wasn’t a ritual for a single power, at least.” She laughed.

“That’s an option? Multiple powers at the same time?” Melanie questioned sharply. “Which ones?!”  
“If I had to guess...” Helen hummed. It wasn’t as calming a sound as it had been before. “All of them.”  
“Fuck. _Fuuuuuck_.” That was... bad. She could barely wrap her head around it. Did the world look different, now? Wrong in some way?  
“How is that even possible?” Georgie bit out.   
“I don’t know. I have never been the architect of a ritual, Georgie. If I had to hazard a guess, though, our Archivist had something to do with it.”  
“Oh god. Jon...”   
“What does it look like outside?” Melanie butted in. Whatever Jon had done, they could worry about it later.  
She waited as Georgie made her way to the window.

There was a sharp intake of breath.  
“The sky... It’s all eyes.”  
“It what?”  
“Hm. The Vast won’t be happy about that.”  
“The sky? _The whole sky?_” Melanie butted back in because what the fuck.  
“The whole sky.” Georgie repeated.

Melanie almost reflexively reached up to tap at her face. Making sure her own still weren’t there. Yeah, no, they hadn’t grown back or anything. It was just the whole fucking sky. 

“We should go.” Georgie said, moving back and placing her hand on Melanie’s arm.  
“Wait, let me get my cane.”   
Georgie’s hand slipped from her arm as she moved away. Only three steps from there to where her cane was, three steps back, but her dread grew with each one. How were they going to do this? With her the way she was? She would be a dead weight in whatever hellish world was outside.

“If you’re up for it... we may be safer in my hallways.” Helen ventured.

“Sure. Georgie?” Melanie banished the dread from her thoughts momentarily. They needed to plan before anything else.

  
The door into Helen’s corridors hit her with a worse wave of nausea than she ever remembered happening. She staggered into a wall, then lurched away as it twisted under her weight.

“Oh god. Okay. We can’t stay here, right?” She asked carefully. “Or anywhere outside?”  
“Not outside, but almost certainly not in the corridors... as much as I enjoy having you two in here, I doubt you would be able to handle it for long.” Helen said, returning to her default state of “unnervingly chipper”.   
“Good call.” Georgie muttered. “Okay. We’re all fine. We can deal with this.”

  
“Yeah.” Melanie echoed. “We can deal with this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *singing* well here we are again! its always such a pleasure! remember when i updated regularly?


	6. d'you think it'd be enough?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the end.

And there, at the end of the world, there was a rooftop and there was a sunset.  
At least, so she’d heard. Nobody seemed to be able to explain how a sky made out of eyes could experience sunset, but there still had to be a transitional period between day and night, so Melanie didn’t actually care that much. 

Helen sat down beside her.

“What’s up?”  
“Nothing, nothing. I just wanted to sit by you.”  
“Mm.”

There was nothing they could say that hadn’t been said, nothing they could do that hadn’t already happened a million times. it was almost laughable, how far they’d come.  
From a popular youtuber and a well-to-do real estate agent to ‘whoever Melanie was now’ and a dent in the fabric of reality. It was ridiculous.

And if you looked at it with a completely practical eye, neither of them had changed for the better. Melanie sighed. The Slaughter yet again lingered in the corners of her mind, its hooks not sunk into her but still waiting. Helen was undefinable, and definitely not getting any more human.

But. Still.  
Even as the world tore apart around them, even as humanity struggled and fell, Melanie thought back to that first conversation, encrusted with gore and shaking uncontrollably, and back to that first offer of... help? Friendship? She hadn’t known what she was offering, just reaching out a hand blindly- heh- into the dark.

Even as the world burned, she could continue to believe that had still meant something.

And she could continue to believe that love existed, even in this ruined world.

So no matter what she had done, what she had lost, maybe that was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank all of you for sticking with me :') and thank you SO MUCH to everyone who commented!! your encouragement is what made me want to finish this so quickly... and tysm to all of u who followed along from the beginning, u know who u are ;3
> 
> thank you for reading! my tumblr is cyberiandemons  
the title and all the chapter titles are taken from "under my skin" by jukebox the ghost


End file.
